How to Convert Visitors from Your About Page

One of the most under-utilized pieces of website real estate out there is the About Us page. While most webmasters treat it as a throw-away repository for a stock biography or company history, consider the mindset of the visitors who arrive on these pages.

They’re interested enough in you and your brand to want to take the next step and learn more about you—indicating that they’re more receptive to sales or other conversions that those who have simply stumbled on to your Home page.

So why waste this valuable opportunity to engage visitors and increase conversions?! Instead, use your “About” page as a springboard to increase engagement with your readers and the number of conversions that result from this valuable web content.

In general, there are three types of conversions that you can pursue from your About page: sales, leads and newsletter signups. Let’s look at each of these in turn to determine when to implement each option and how to integrate each one effectively.

Conversion option #1: Newsletter signups

We’ll start with newsletter signups, as this is the easiest conversion type to feature on your About page. As mentioned before, people arrive on this page because they want to know more about you. From there, it’s easy to convince these readers that one way to get to know you and your business even better is to sign up to receive your email newsletter.

For proof that this strategy works, consider the case study featured by Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income, who added an opt-in form for his email newsletter to his About page on the recommendation of conversions expert Derek Halpern. The result? A 446% increase in signups from this page alone. According to Pat:

“From the changes I made, adding an opt-in form to the About page has increased the number of subscribers the most (by far!) and this makes perfect sense.

The About page serves to describe who I am and what my site is about. It’s one of the most visited pages in my navigation menu and it doesn’t include links, resources, or any other calls to action, so having an option to learn more about what I do through a newsletter after reading (and hopefully being interested in) what my site is about, is perfect.”

To increase newsletter signups from your About page, create a separate opt-in form from within your email list management program to embed on the page. Use language on your form that’s targeted specifically to your About page (for example, “To get to know more about us, subscribe to our newsletter below!”) in order to maximize newsletter signups. Don’t forget to create a separate version of your form to split test on this important page to make your opt-in form as effective as possible!

Conversion option #2: Leads

If your online business model revolves around attracting qualified leads to either sell or use in an offline business, your About page is a great place to start converting new visitors!

Similar to the newsletter opt-in conversion process described above, adding a lead generation form to your About page works because the people who have arrived on this page have already demonstrated interest in learning more about your company. With visitors already in this mindset, it’s an easy transition to encourage them to take the next step of giving you their contact info to receive more information.

For example, say you begin your About page with a brief history of your company and a description of the services you offer. If visitors reading this page find your information interesting enough, they’re naturally going to want to learn more about your products and services. So instead of hoping they’ll meander back to your homepage, where your lead generation form is installed, why not create a separate form here to capture these already-interested readers on the spot?

To make this area of your site even more effective in capturing new leads and increasing conversions, use language on the page that tells readers that filling in the lead generation form is simply the next stage in the process of getting to know your company—not the scary prospect of handing over personal information to a nameless, faceless website. Doing so will help overcome your visitors’ natural hesitation to reveal personal information unless it’s absolutely necessary.

You could also use this opportunity to highlight a special bonus that you’re offering to visitors that complete your About page lead generation form. This could be a free consultation, free ebook, or other giveaway that will help to overcome resistance and encourage visitors to this page to convert into leads.

Conversion option #3: Sales

Converting your About page visitors into buyers is the trickiest option in terms of increasing conversions, but when it’s done well, it can dramatically increase your website’s revenue and ROI.

Again, the key to increasing sales conversions on your About page lies in understanding the mindset of your readers. The people who have reached this important page on your site want to know more about you, which means that they’re ready to invest time in your business and are likely open to taking further action on your website.

So instead of leaving them cold with a simple bio and company history, use this space to highlight a few products for them to start with. To do this effectively, consider any of the following options:

Highlight your favorite products: If you sell multiple products on your site, use your About page as a place to recommend a few of the products that you feel best showcase your business. Offer personal comments on why you love each of the products you recommend in order to make your About page product features more engaging to visitors.

Showcase your bestsellers: Your About page visitors may be looking for the next steps to take with your company, so if you offer an extensive variety of products for sale, consider using this space to feature the products that sell best on your website. Doing so will give visitors an easy starting place to delve into all of your different product lines.

Feature your “most viewed” offerings: Use your Google Analytics data to determine which products on your site are viewed most often, as these popular products will likely be a good place for your About page visitors to jump into your product offerings.

To determine whether or not you’ve chosen the right products to feature on your About page, set up a Google Analytics “goal” that tracks how many sales result from visitors who land on a product page from your About page. If you aren’t seeing high conversions from the products you initially feature, swap them out with others until you hit on a winning combination.

At the end of the day, the specific type of conversion you decide to pursue on your About page is less important than the fact that you take any action in order to make this digital real estate as effective as possible in the first place. Track your results as you go and make improvements as needed in order to make your About page both useful for your visitors and lucrative for your company’s bottom line.

Are you gaining conversions through your About page? What kind, and how? Share your tips with us in the comments.

AJ Kumar is co-founder of Single Grain, a digital marketing agency< based in San Francisco. Single Grain specializes in helping startups and larger companies with search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media, and various other marketing strategies.

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The About Us page on your company’s website is probably one the most important pages, it should be reclined more towards about your visitor. What your visitor wants to see and read. By being creative with your text and at the same time being informative about what your company does. A good way to do this is also to include a short video about your company on your About Us page.

I agree, most companies have an About Us page that is either underutilized or that is comprised of dull company information. Users do tend to visit this page because they are genuinely interested in the company’s core values, and they want to get to know the individual people behind the company. Your idea of having a newsletter signup option on the About Us page is a great way to engage readers by offering your newsletter where they can learn more about you and your company.

I’d completely forgotten about the fact I could include the sign-up form on my About page, as that page gets the highest amount of traffic on my blog (at least at the moment!) it makes perfect sense to include the option to sign up.

I particularly like the idea about putting a subscriber form in the About page; I’ve seen it in Pat Flynn’s and some other places too and have been planning to try it. This has given me the push. Thanks!

I haven’t included a specific link or form on my About page but your advice is well take.

Most people’s About page generates the most traffic among their blog pages. We desire to know more about the blogger to bump up our trust factor. If you know who just wrote the post, or at least get to know them a little better through their About page, then you are more likely to take a call to action. Why not place the call directly on the Page?

Converting to newsletter seems to work best for me. I grow my team off of my list, primarily, so enticing readers with a newsletter would make sense. You can also throw in another freebie to sweeten the pot and over-deliver. I offer a free marketing boot camp too, to help readers share their website more effectively and generate more conversions. Offer value, become valuable, and more importantly, offer the value in the proper place. Place it where prying eyes can see it.

So key to include a call to action on this page. Readers will not take the next step, or call to action, unless you explicitly tell them to do it. A big, relevant opt-in form helps readers see what you want them to do, so more readers will do it.

Great food for thought here AJ. Heading offer to my gifting blog now to make some changes to increase my newsletter subscriber count and of course, I know this can increase conversions too, as more list members who are really interested in me can help my converts jump.

Probably as others have mentioned in comments above, something that is often overlooked.
I have seen some really well set up about pages. Also, a number of sites that do not hardly show anything.
A few lines at best.

Considering my About page needs a revamp, I have another chore on my ever growing list of chores….

Lately I see posts about marketing strategies / making money online or generating traffic but what is the real purpose for all these techniques? Which ones produce the results that we really want to see? What is the conversion rate? Great post and conversion tips for the “about page”! Thanks for sharing AJ Kumar!!!

Wow, these tips are simply – awesome. For one, I haven’t considered creating a newsletter signup on my About page and I wonder if those floating conversion forms are the better option to choose from. Perhaps not as they can be annoying, like those popup ads you see online. Anyway, thanks for sharing!

Great post AJ. I’m a big advocate of using your about page to convert and always write a strong call to action into my clients’ pages but I’d never thought of including a newsletter subscription. I’m adding it to mine right now!

This is a nice advice. When I created my website I used an auto generator to create the ‘About Page’. Someone on WF had told that this is the least important page and one should not bother about it at all and just keep it for indexing purpose. But now I think it can be treated as another opportunity for client conversion rather than a liability :) It would also help if you can point out 3-4 great examples for About page. That would help your readers to think in different directions.

Relevant and timely as I just finished our about page yesterday. I’m definitely going to try all three and see which one works the best. Thanks for the mobile site as well. I haven’t been to pro blogger in a while. So glad to see the mobile optimized site. Typing this from the iPhone now whoohoo!!!